ID cards could be delayed as PM calls for review into technology

Gordon Brown has demanded a review of the technology behind the proposed new ID cards, the Guardian has learned.

The prime minister is understood to have expressed concern that the huge new project - the biggest since the introduction of a computerised national patients system - does not prove to be another IT fiasco.

Ministers have fought in the courts and in information tribunals any move to disclose existing assessments by Whitehall of the viability of ID cards in the Gateway Reviews by the Treasury's Office of Government Commerce. The reviews, thought to have been highly critical, were never published.

The government is appealing in test cases brought by Computer Weekly and the Guardian at an information tribunal to force the release of Gateway Reviews and correspondence to permanent secretaries who went ahead with computer projects that later failed.

Mr Brown's intervention comes as the government is under pressure from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and human rights groups such as Liberty to scrap the expensive ID cards project.

Sources close to the PM yesterday described a report in the Sunday Mirror that Mr Brown was about to announce a major U-turn by scrapping ID cards as "garbage".

But a number of ministerial sources did confirm that the PM was concerned enough about introducing such a huge multi-billion pound scheme to insist that the technology must work before it is introduced. This could lead to a delay in the implementation of ID cards. At present the government plans to roll out ID cards for foreigners and extend biometric passports for UK citizens.

There is no plan for any further legislation on ID cards in Tuesday's Queen's Speech for the next parliamentary session.

Liberal Democrats yesterday pressed the case for the government to drop ID cards. Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman and leadership candidate, said: " The fact there will now be another review, on top of a number of secret critical reviews, seems to me to suggest that Gordon Brown is panicking about whether ID cards will be effective. The sooner he drops them the better."

Home office minister Lord West told BBC1's The Politics Show: "Identity cards, for all the debate about other things, in a purely counter-terrorist role will be of help."